“To justify” means “to declare righteous”; it does not mean “to make righteous.” . . . Christian, when God justifies you, He does not “let you of the hook” with your sins still hanging in midair. He does not pretend that your sins have been paid for. Rather, He sees that your sins really have been paid for by Christ, and He makes a declaration based on that fact. . . . Beloved Christian, you may have some terrible memories in your sinful past, but you can be certain of this: those sins are not still hanging in midair. They’ve come down . . . on the Lord Jesus Christ! And He actually paid for them! He bore your sins in His own body on the cross.

– Charles Leiter